The Circle

by Dave Eggers

the tools you guys create actually manufacture unnaturally extreme social needs. No one needs the level of contact you’re purveying. It improves nothing.

If you care about your fellow human beings, you share what you know with them. You share what you see. You give them anything you can. If you care about their plight, their suffering, their curiosity, their right to learn and know anything the world contains, you share with them. You share what you have and what you see and what you know. To me, the logic there is undeniable.” The audience cheered, and while they did so, three new words, SHARING IS CARING, appeared on the screen,

SECRETS ARE LIES SHARING IS CARING PRIVACY IS THEFT

“We must all have the right to anonymity.” “Not every human activity can be measured.” “The ceaseless pursuit of data to quantify the value of any endeavor is catastrophic to true understanding.” “The barrier between public and private must remain unbreachable.” At the end she found one line, written in red ink: “We must all have the right to disappear.”

The rights of humans in a digital age...